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Not long after its March launch last year, it was revealed that a GPU exploit in the Nintendo Switch could be used to run unofficial software, like pirated games and homebrew ROMs. Since then, the Switch's hacking community has grown, and the discovery of a new 'unpatchable' exploit last month has only made the console more attractive to pirates and homebrew fans.

Nintendo isn't taking the assault on its walled garden lightly, however, and is taking steps to crack down and dissuade users from taking advantage of the security holes.

The Japanese company has begun banning hacked consoles from its online services, sending error notifications when users attempt to log in. According to the message, "The use of online services on this console is currently restricted by Nintendo," and users will need to "Contact Customer Support via the Nintendo Support Website".

[Hacker] group Fail0verflow has claimed to have found a Nintendo Switch hack.

The group has posted the picture of Switch booting a Debian GNU/Linux installation. The picture also shows a serial adapter connected to one Joy-Con docks. Notably, Fail0verflow is the same group that hacked Nintendo Wii and PlayStation 3.

What makes this Nintendo Switch hack special is that it can't be patched in the currently released consoles. This is because the exploit was found in the boot ROM process of Nvidia Tegra X1 chips that can't be patched with software or firmware updates.

That's not all. This hack to run Linux doesn't even need a mod chip to run.

I was sceptical at firstI was sceptical at first(Score: 4, Interesting) by black6host on Sunday January 07 2018, @03:31AM
(4 children)

My 9 year old wanted one badly for his birthday. Actually, truth be told, it would matter what day it was, :) Well, I got him one, with a couple of games and it's been pretty decent. The quality is good enough for my failing eyesight and good enough for him. Especially on a TV. It's portable and is very nice to work with that way as well.

It may not have the computing and graphics punch of the competitors but it has the games, good enough quality and can handle both big screen and be portable. They've got a winner on their hands...

Re:I was sceptical at firstRe:I was sceptical at first(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Sunday January 07 2018, @03:45AM
(1 child)

They are on the same commodity hardware path as Xbox and Sony. Nintendo should be able to drop in a newer Nvidia Tegra SoC every 3 years or so to improve power consumption and performance. Which is somewhat more critical for them since unlike the 4K!!!!!!! Xbox One X and PS4 Pro, the Switch is portable and could always use more battery life.

Re:I was sceptical at first(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @03:53AM

It's beginning. I can't wait!A grand experiment is about to unfold... an experiment unlike any the world has ever seen before!

"Ba la la la leh leh leh!""Ba la la la leh leh leh!"

Wow! That ET doll is jabbing its creepy-looking hand right into your bootysnap! That must be inflicting horrible tickle upon your ass! This is amazing! The time interval between jabs is decreasing by the yoctosecond! It's all happening at over 99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 times the speed of light!

Re:I was sceptical at first(Score: 4, Informative) by Marand on Sunday January 07 2018, @04:32AM

It may not have the computing and graphics punch of the competitors but it has the games, good enough quality and can handle both big screen and be portable.

It's not just that it's portable, it's that it's seamlessly so. You drop it into the dock and it slots itself in with no fuss, just an instant swap to television (or monitor) output. It feels like hardware convergence done right. Just like the unit itself, the controller is similarly flexible and mostly seamless. The switch controller can be used attached to the portable screen, detached and used as a single two-part controller (wii-style), used as two separate controllers (1p/2p), or slotted into a plastic shell to handle more like a traditional controller, and all but one (attached to the unit) can be used docked or in portable mode.

I know it's just a game machine, but seeing how well it handles hardware convergence makes me hopeful that eventually someone will get it right for general-purpose computing devices one day as well.

"What if you don't like Mario or Zelda?"(Score: 3, Informative) by Marand on Sunday January 07 2018, @03:44AM

You don't have to like those to want a Switch, though it does help. Splatoon 2 and ARMs are also a lot of fun, Metroid Prime 4 is coming, and I've heard some of the other Switch games are a blast as well.

That said, I'd argue that you can't gauge your potential to enjoy Breath of the Wild based on how much or little you've liked previous Zelda titles, because it's a very, very different game from the formula the series has followed since the smash success of Ocarina of Time redefined what people expected from a Zelda game. It's a sandbox game, more akin to a Zelda-skinned Grand Theft Auto or Elder Scrolls game than a post-OoT Zelda. Its open nature makes it feel less like post-OoT Zelda and more like an evolution of the original NES game and A Link to the Past on the SNES.

If you like being given a world to explore and no restrictions on how to go about doing it, it's a game you can get sucked into. Even the shrine puzzles (how you increase your health or stamina) are open-ended: they have intended solutions, but they aren't strictly enforced, so you can often solve them multiple ways, sometimes easier or harder than the "correct" solutions.

Comment Below Threshold (2 children)

What if you don't like Mario or Zelda?What if you don't like Mario or Zelda?(Score: -1, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday January 07 2018, @03:51AM
(2 children)

Re:Whatever happened to that other game company?(Score: 2, Informative) by Apparition on Sunday January 07 2018, @05:41AM

Sega pulled out of the console hardware business in 2001 with the Dreamcast [wikipedia.org] their last console release, for two reasons. First, the Sega Saturn was a huge pain in the rear to program for [theguardian.com], giving ground to Nintendo with the Nintendo 64 and Sony with the PlayStation. Then Sega's Dreamcast console went toe-to-toe with the Sony PlayStation 2, and it lost, leaving Sega a bloody, crumbled mess. The Dreamcast suffered major piracy issues due to ease of pirating Dreamcast games, and the PlayStation 2 was able to play original PlayStation games. The combination of Sega losing market share in the Saturn era due to the difficulty third-parties had making games for it, the ease of piracy with the Dreamcast, and the PS2 just plain being better with a huge back catalog of games dealt a death blow to Sega's console business.

That's exactly why it is popular. They have far more games with actual gameplay and are fun to play on their own. You can keep all your "real" games, all the me-too FPS which are exactly the same game over and over and over. All they do is re-skin them and improve the graphics, but the gameplay is the same year after year after year. Bored fighting zombies? No problem, slap a new background and skin on it and you're fighting aliens. Or Nazis. Or cybersoldiers. They dump 90% of their budgets into high production cut scenes. Once you've played Call of Duty, you've basically played every one of those other games.

Look, Far Cry 5 is coming out! It's still the same game as 1 through 4, "but it's wearing a new hat! [youtube.com]"! I want it, I want it, I want it!

Doesn't mean much in early 2018 due to scheduling of console releases.

The xbox one and PS4 came out in Nov 2013, the switch came out ten months ago

Global sales as of last september were 65M PS4, 30M xbox, 5M switch. The xbox growth rate was flat (near zero) where PS4 sales and switch sales were about the same.

Somehow if the 10 month early adopter rate of sales of the switch is only microscopic better than four years after the PS4 release, um... just saying we won't be seeing this headline in 2021.

Only the laziest adopters are buying xbox/ps4 now. Maybe its weird to hijack a switch thread, but I got a PS4-VR "for the kids" and I'm enjoying the heck out of playing battlezone and drive club and a couple other games. The weird "job simulator" game is perfect intro for noobs at parties, the cooking one is especially entertaining (eventually everyone independently discovers the game of tossing things into the fishtank; only other job-simulator players will understand this weird comment). I am a very late console adopter, I know.

The biggest problem I have with the switch is my gamer kid and his little gang of gamer hooligans have this fixation on minecraft story mode that just won't end and he already has a perfectly good tablet to play it on, so selling me a super expensive switch to buy MC:SM again is not very appealing. Also "Muh video game controller has a screen on it" is very Wii-U and thats not ... cool. I'm just not seeing the switch appeal. You can buy the tablet games he already has on the tablet he already has on something like the wii-u that he already has, but what do you get out of it other than doing the same thing after spending lots of money?

The funniest thing about owning a PS-VR is reading "reviews" by children about how horrifically low res the game is, realizing I'm so old I literally grew up playing Atari 2600 which was not exactly a 4K / retina display worth of resolution. I actually remember how crappy PS1 looked and PS-VR is vastly better. Yes it is not as high res as the 4K TV hooked up to a PS4-pro, but I am having too much fun to care?

The numbers are about the first months after release, not the current picture. The Swotch was released out of season, and still trounces everything else over its first few months.

I just held on and dragged my feet, so that Minecraft waited until we got the Switch for Christmas, avoiding the redundancy issue. That and Mario Kart 8 combine to make very motivated and obedient children (only allowed 30 minutes a day, and not eager to lose it). Mario Odyssey makes a compelling case for the motion controls of the controllers (MK8 too, with the drive assist for the little one who doesn't get it yet, making it fun for all). It's a great platform given that my kids are in the sweet spot (fun games, not better-than-yours graphics on FPS(n+1)). We had looked at PS4/Xbox, and the AAA titles are almost all for teens and older.Bonus: went on a multi-day trip, just tossed it in the luggage, but played it mostly on the hotel TVs. Wouldn't have done that with the bulky competitors.